#and totally forget about everything

[spiderzlover]

IDK WHO HANDSHAKE IS.. Frye won!!!!! In Japan!!!!! OBANYAKI LET'S GOOOO💛💛💛

[wasyago]

the kind of chemistry these two have is very entertaining

[icewindandboringhorror]

What would you choose? :0c

(note: original image is from HERE (link) - but I edited it to add a wider variety of options.. also added $3 extra to the total, even though I know that makes it more uneven lol, I thought if you're adding 10 whole extra items, the money to spend should at least be increased slightly, if that makes sense..)

[bubblegum-gf]

I should compare spawn! and this one’s for me in a diagram or several

[garashir]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins // Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson // Can't Catch Me Now, Olivia Rodrigo

[incorrectlyquoteddgs]

Herlock: Herlock Sholmes. Great British consulting detective! Susato: Susato Mikotoba, judicial assistant. Ryunosuke: Er, Ryunosuke Naruhodo. Um... I have a sword.

[swordscleric]

I don't know if anyone's gone through the original Dawn War pantheon* and compared the events of the Dawn War to the events of the Calamity, but it's interesting comparing how Tharizdun acts in the Dawn War to how little we know about it as the Chained Oblivion and might be useful as a theory-crafting aid for how the Chained Oblivion fits with Predathos**.

In the Dawn War, Tharizdun was a normal god, driven mad by extradimensional demons who provided him with huge amounts of power and attempted to force him to open a portal in the Astral Plane to release them. He took this power, and instead of releasing them created the Abyss. He and his would-be masters fought to a stalemate over control of the Abyss, until the rest of the pantheon found out and sealed him away, leaving him chained to a remote part of the Abyss[1].

By contrast, the Chained Oblivion is "something other entirely"[2], "less like a god and more like another world"[3]; it's been categorised as not of the Primes or Betrayers[4], and generally Matt has leaned much more into the cosmic horror vibes (sans a connection to the Far Realm) of the Chained Oblivion. It's a creature of "roiling ink and hungry darkness"[5], and was sealed at the bottom of the Abyss by the Dawnfather and the Knowing Mistress, with support from the Allhammer and the Changebringer[2, 3, 6]. The Chained Oblivion also wants to consume all and end the world and is kept at arms length by the Betrayers[5], and as a result of that plus its association with an unknowable hunger some people have now associated it with Predathos or think it and Predathos are of a similar species.

I think the Chained Oblivion is not Predathos in another form, but I do think that it's of a similar species. Looking at the Dawn War, and assuming (with the full acknowledgement that I'll more than likely be wrong) that Matt will stick as closely to the Dawn War as he has in the past, I think the Chained Oblivion is a smaller and weaker being of nothingness that decided to forge its own path instead of following Predathos' lead. My gut instinct is that the Chained Oblivion, seeing Ethedok and Vordo get eaten, took up Ethedok's mantle of darkness[7]*** and avoided working with Predathos and porentially fought the God Eater in order to survive and work its own odd plans of destruction. The Chained Oblivion makes a lot of plans to try and free itself (see the Angel of Irons or Cognouza), so I wouldn't be surprised if its propensity towards planning was present from the very moment it set foot on Exandria. Does this mean the Chained Oblivion will be let loose to fight the God Eater if Predathos is released? I doubt it, considering that it nearly killed the Knowing Mistress. And we know how the gods feel about family.

Footnotes

*The Dawn War pantheon is the slimmed down pantheon used for 4th edition D&D; can be found on page 11 of the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Used by Matt for the Primes & Betrayers with the addition of Sarenrae from Pathfinder.

**I'm aware of the pitfalls of using existing narratives and non-Exandrian lore to try and predict what's going on in CR at this moment in time; while there's not a 1:1 overlap between other D&D worlds' lore and Exandria, some of the major relationships do stay the same. For example, Pelor, Ioun and Tharizdun are all linked in Exandria and in D&D "canon" (Pelor, Ioun and Tharizdun all looked into the Far Realm and saw mysterious secrets, secrets which drove Tharizdun to want to destroy the universe as per Gates of Madness (2010). Additionally, Tharizdun is deeply associated with the Abyss across both settings). Bear with me.

***Zehir, the Cloaked Serpent is also associated with darkness; however while the Lawbearer and the Platinum Dragon are associated with order there is no explicit god of order which was Vordo's other domain. The Chained Oblivion is explicitly described as a god of darkness in both the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (page 27) and the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (page 34).

References

1. Demonomicon (2010), pages 7-9. The wording of how the sealing took place is intentionally vague as it's a plot hook for DMs to expand on in their campaigns.

2. Titles and Tattoos, CR Campaign 2, Episode 84, from 14:00.

3. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020), page 27.

4. Matt's Discord post during Nick Marini's AMA (linked here).

5. Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, page 36.

6. The Endless Atheneum, CR Campaign 1, Episode 106, from 1:08:16.

7. Axiom Shaken, CR Campaign 3, Episode 43, at 3:02:19.

[canyourscienceexplainthis]

Re-watching kinnporsche and bruh Vegas and Kim are playing chess while everyone else is playing strip poker like these guys are strategizing and scheming and everyone else is just getting naked

[amelikos]

Liko casually revealing that she knew Gibeon's name and nervously looking away when the others said that they haven't heard of what happened in the cave and pretending that she forgot to mention..

She really considered her heart-to-heart with Amethio a private conversation and kept it to herself.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Finished Slay The Princess.

Final order of princesses: The Stranger, The Damsel, The Moment of Clarity, The Prisoner, The Wounded Wild

Final number of princesses killed: Somewhere between 0 and 0.5

Final number of princesses slain: 0

Out of all of the Princesses, The Beast ranked at #1 enthusiasm from the liveblog chat and #7 (out of 7) at amount of coherent commentary made. #1 comment across all routes was "women" from all members of chat. Had a lot of fun doing it. We are really, really bad at slaying princesses.

[gay-caesar-truther]

Shepherd and Brutus are so everything to me. Two brothers in a shitty situation (Legion). Brutus sucks up to the commanders, to Caesar, to anyone for an OUNCE of power he can use to protect Shepherd- but he doesn't tell his brother WHY he's kissing ass. As a result Shepherd resents him for it- thinks he's pathetic and power hungry and he's forgetting everything the Legion did to their tribe for a bit more power.

If Brutus wasn't emotionally repressed and so violently protective just TALKED to his younger brother there would be no problems.

And then one of them dies at Hoover dam(which one depends on the playthrough as Shep is my independent courier, and Brutus my legion one) and the other has to deal with all this left over loss on resentment on their own.

[the-lightbulb-network]

Not me screaming, punching things, crying, hating life, feeling like vomit... or vomiting, listening to the most rage filled music I can find. All because my FP seemed sad today, and I'm now completely convinced it's our fault for absolutely zero reason! 😜

[daisyachain]

I like the Kubyenka. No beliefs no ideology no faith. Certain of nothing except that death is going to be very unpleasant indeed. Morals enough to deny that he will ever be in heaven based on what he knows but not enough to stop doing what will put him in hell. No wonder he drinks.

[uchiha-gaeshi]

I'm changing my pronouns back to he/they.

[starryluminary]

I was gonna say before the milestone caught me off guard that I might be posting an update to the second noco collab tomorrow. Or the 4th. Just so we’re aware I haven’t forgotten

[beetlejuce]

we are nearing vday and I’m thinking about how I wanna pepper this man with kisses. would be great if I felt like I could hold a damn conversation with him